Accreditation for drug abuse treatment counselors takes lead in Central America

El Salvador has become the testing ground for the first accreditation program of drug abuse treatment in Latin America. CICAD’s Central American Program for Training in Prevention of Drug Abuse and Violence, now underway in El Salvador, has provided training and capacity-building in drug abuse prevention and treatment methods to nearly 500 staff of 34 governmental and non-governmental drug treatment programs and the four governmental juvenile detention centers since February 2007. [Photo: Above, participants welcomed the chance to broaden their preparation for dealing with treatment issues.]  Read the full story...

Costa Rica shows the way to managing seized and forfeited assets

Costa Rica has found a successful formula for tackling the troublesome issues of managing assets seized and forfeited from narcotraffickers and their money laundering operations. The Asset Management Unit set up within the Costa Rican Institute on Drugs (ICD) has recovered more than US$3 million for the fight against drug trafficking and abuse. [Photo: On the right, administrating a warehouse of seized vehicles is a complicated task.] Read the full story...

The international context: Treaties and institutions

The worldwide legal framework to deal with controlled substances, abuse and addiction, narcotrafficking and its financial repercussions is a textbook example of the sweeping implications of globalization in the 21st century. No single government has the power, leverage, resources and political will in its hands to solve the problem alone. Efforts to develop an international, multilateral approach to the issue over more than half a century have been imperfect, but they still represent an interlocking web of consensus forged by governments over the past 60 years. Read the full story...

News and activities

First Interregional Forum convokes city leaders from Europe, Latin American and the Caribbean

A twin-city initiative to share experiences of drug treatment at the local level will have its first encounter in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, April 2-5, 2008. City mayors and officials from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean will make initial contact and explore potential areas of collaboration, like alternative sentencing for minor drug offenses, treatment programs and other initiatives. The Drug Treatment City Partnerships Project is funded by the European Commission.  Read more about the initiative...

Drug observatories focus on Caribbean trends

CICAD's Inter-American Observatory on Drugs, along with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, convened a meeting of national drug observatories and a demand reduction training workshop on September 10–14 in St. George’s, Grenada. The observatory meeting is the second biennial meeting to take place and the first to include a training component for demand reduction practitioners. The meeting presented and discussed the findings of recent  population surveys on drug use in the region. It also emphasized the linkage between research and policy making. [Photo: On the right, CICAD Executive Secretary James Mack informs Grenadian Prime Minister Keith Mitchell about the meeting's progress.] Read more about the event...

Summer researchers embark on multi-centric study 

CICAD and the Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH, Toronto, Canada) offered the third advanced research training program for health-related professionals from Latin America to study drug issues through the development of a multi-centric research study in June-August 20007. Ten participants from five Latin American countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Honduras and Peru) completed the 12-week intensive program in Toronto and then returned to their own countries to undertake a research study entitled “University Students’ Perceived Norms about Peers and Drug Use: A Multi-Centric Study from Five Latin American Countries.” The Canadian government funded the summer program.

CICAD invests in staff of national drug commissions

CICAD has been organizing an active training program to improve human resources at national drug commissions so that their staff can use modern management approaches to fulfill their missions, as part of its institutional development efforts. The initiative has two tracks: Strategic planning and management, which has trained 90 participants in six countries so far this year, and integration of high-skill working teams to improve cooperative inter-agency work on drugs, which has trained 134 participants in five countries. Another four courses are to be given by the end of the year in Colombia, the Dominican Republic (2) and Mexico. [Photo: On the right, the participants in the Panama workshop on strategic management and planning. ]

OID offers another opportunity for research grants

The Inter-American Observatory on Drugs (OID) is calling for 2007 proposals for its Competitive Research Award Fund, jointly sponsored with the National Institute on Drugs Abuse (NIDA, USA).  The program awards modest grants to university students to encourage drug epidemiology in member states. Additional details and the application form are available. Submissions must be endorsed by the respective national drug commission and arrive by December 31, 2007 deadline.

Other CICAD activities

The forty-second regular session of CICAD will take place on November 27-30 in Santa Marta, Colombia... The Ibero-American Workshop on Drug Policies at the Local Level will be held on October 29-November 1 in Cartagena, Colombia...  The Expert Group on the Control of Money Laundering will be meeting on November 7-9 in Santiago... The Export Group on Demand Reduction will meet in Santiago, Chile on November 13-15... The Andean Community Regional Counter-drug Intelligence School will give a seminar in Operational Intelligence in Lima from November 19 to December 15... For up-to-date information about conferences, workshops, and courses, please check the CICAD web calendar.

Online Resources: UNODC

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has a broad mandate to deal with international law enforcement and criminal justice issues, as well as drugs. It serves as a global clearinghouse of information on controlled substances.  It sponsors June 26 as International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking as part of a worldwide campaign to raise public awareness about drug-related issues. [Illustration: On the right is the 2007-2009 slogan and banner]  

Its Annual Report is a key document for tracking trends internationally, and its Perspectives newsletter reports on a quarterly basis. Recent additions to the UNODC library are:

• Coca Cultivation in the Andean Region (144 pages, 9.5 Mb), as part of the UNODC Illicit Crop Monitoring Programme
• Crime and Development in Central America: Caught in the Crossfire (101 pages, 1.9 Mb)
• Crime, Violence, and Development: Trends, Costs, and Policy Options in the Caribbean (228 pages, 1.6 Mb)

As part of its mandate, UNODC maintains a section on research, analysis and statistics. It also has the major international drug control treaties on-line, as well as resolutions and decisions by the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council and the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND). Abridged versions of the site and materials in other languages are available at regional offices: Brazil (Portuguese), Colombia, Mexico and Peru (Spanish).